by Robert Lambert

Created on: April 09, 2009

I am a science-fiction writer with an interest in linguistics, and my primary intention in writing this article is to help other writers who need to create the basics of a fictional language for an alien species. But alas, within that very first sentence we come across the first error that so many sci-fi authors make. Humans currently speak somewhere between 5000 and 7000 languages, and the general trend in language is toward increased variation, meaning that in the future we are likely to speak even more languages. Being spread out on multiple planets will likely only increase this as it further isolates speakers of different languages from each other.

So please do not give your alien species a language, or for that matter a culture. They ought to have many of both. Of course I do not ask that you design 7000 languages in detail (or at all), each with a specific culture. Even making a single language or culture in enough detail to be considered complete and functional is an enormous task. In fact, given that real languages and cultures are the combined creation of millions of different points of view, I should say that creating a real culture on your own is literally impossible.

Luckily, while it makes sense to assume that your alien species has thousands of languages and cultures, just like we do, there's no need to create all of them. There's a very high probability that your characters will not encounter the vast majority of your aliens' languages and cultures. Probably they will encounter a few languages and cultures, and be generally aware of a few more, and have no knowledge at all about the rest. Create whatever you need to give the appearance of a rich, varied world, as well as anything you just want to create for the fun of it.

In any case, let's make a language! The very first thing I always create is a sound system, aka the language's "phoneme inventory." This is the set of sounds the language uses. Here it really helps to know something about phonetics, but it's not necessary. You don't need to know that a "t" is a "voiceless alveolar stop" in order to use it. But if you want to give your languages some sounds that English doesn't have, which is a great way to make it feel more authentic, it really helps to know the International Phonetic Alphabet, also called the IPA.

In designing a sound system it's important to consider how each sound will be written in the Latin alphabet. In general I think it's a good idea to make it easy to understand for your

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